By Jeremy Pittari, Magnolia Tribune
At center, State Senator ChrisJohnson describes the USM property sale. (Photo by Jeremy Pittari | Magnolia Tribune)
The Mississippi Senate Universities and Colleges Committee used strike-all amendments to House bills to keep workforce development and financial literacy efforts alive on Tuesday.
To keep the Senate’s UPSKILL bill, SB 2522, moving through the process, the committee adopted a strike-all amendment to HB 562 when passing the bill out of committee. HB 562 intiailly set up a program called Mississippi Career and Technical Education Employability (MissCATEE) program.
Committee Chair State Senator Nicole Boyd (R) explained to the members that she believes the Senate’s version of the bill is more efficient in achieving the same goal of aligning Career and Technical Education with post-secondary education.
“So you can see the alignment in looking at everything from the pre-K level, or really the K-12 level, and through colleges and universities and looking at workforce and CTE,” Boyd said.
A reverse repealer was added to the bill through a motion by State Senator Briggs Hopson (R) before the strike-all was adopted. Boyd said the bill will also be considered by Appropriations.
Last week, the House Universities and Colleges Committee decided not to advance SB 2344, which would have mandated all community colleges and universities include some sort of financial literacy for all students. House Committee Chair State Rep. Donnie Scoggin (R) said the bill was not advanced because most institutions already provide some sort of financial literacy.
“The ones that are not teaching it will be encouraged to do something with that,” Scoggin said last week.
On Tuesday, a strike-all amendment to HB 1488 added the Senate provision back to the legislation, along with allowing the University of Southern Mississippi to selloff about 600 acres of property. The acreage is expected to be developed for commercial and residential purposes over several years.
State Senator Chris Johnson (R) said USM came into possession of the property as a donation in the 1920s.
“This property has served several purposes, including the golf course for the university up until about 25 years ago,” Johnson explained. “Since that time it has not been used but over the last 10 years or so, USM along with the city of Hattiesburg, our area development partnership and MDA have worked to invest money into that site to get it developable.”
He added that the bill frees up the process of selling the land to make it more attractive to private entities.
A lake on the property will remain under university maintenance, meaning not all 600 acres of the property would be sold.
Another bill that passed out of the committee was HB 1582, which allows adjustments to energy performance contracts. Senator Boyd clarified that the bill is double referred to the Public Property Committee for necessary vetting.
“We already allow public entities, including community colleges, enter into these energy performance contracts and energy service agreements,” Boyd described, adding that the bill was not requested by the community colleges.
“This is something that was brought to us by a number of the vendors saying this doesn’t make financial sense anymore,” Boyd described.
The performance contracts typically work to ensure a public entity gains a payback in the form of energy savings over 20 years to perform the energy improvement maintenance projects. This bill reviews that current window.
“We are being told that that 20 year cap sometimes is not practical in that aspect,” Boyd added.
The one year pilot program is aimed at also helping community colleges review methods to address their aging infrastructure in a proactive manner.
“Contracts still have to demonstrate savings over the useful life of the improvements and this bill does not impact procurement rules or traditional capital construction projects,” Boyd described.
In other business, the Senate committee passed HB 1495, a companion bill to SB 2238, which would allow Mississippi State University to co-mingle funds with the Starkville Oktibbeha School District to build a high school on MSU property. Any shared faculty would have to be mutually agreed upon by both parties.